Manhattan online sports betting busts

The publication AM New York reports that nine men were arrested in Manhattan Tuesday on internet sportsbetting, drugs and loan sharking charges.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly revealed that the takedown of nine reputed Bonanno crime family members who allegedly ran the gamut of illegal activities, including the illegal operation of an online gambling service and illegal sale of sex enhancement pills.

“The organized crime activity described in the indictment is as old as the Bonanno crime family, and as relatively new as online betting and trafficking in highly addictive oxycodone,” said Kelly, whose investigators were involved in the probe.

The nine people charged included Nicholas Santora (71) of Long Island, a Bonanno family captain.

Already serving a 20-month sentence at a Pennsylvania federal prison for a 2012 extortion conspiracy conviction, Santora faces charges of enterprise corruption, grand larceny and usury in the latest case.

Among those charged were Ernest Aiello (34) of the Bronx, and Vito Badamo (50) of Brooklyn.

The indictment included charges that the defendants used a gambling operation in Costa Rica where bettors wagered online on professional sporting events. Proceeds from the illegal gambling operation amounted to almost $7 million in less than 230 days of activity, the indictment claimed.

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